


Carol of the Bells

by Temaris



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:45:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2809502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temaris/pseuds/Temaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven bells for an Abhorsen in Waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carol of the Bells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kyanos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanos/gifts).



> Contains spoilers for _Sabriel, Lirael_ and _Abhorsen_. No spoilers for _Clariel_.

**Sleepbringer**

She is five years old when Terciel brings her across the Wall to Wyverley College one snowy winter’s day.  He arrives with the child on one hip, a sword on the other, two travel bags at his feet, and a bandoleer of bells across his chest.   Sabriel is a small solemn faced child, barely visible under the heavy cloak of her father, sleepy and compliant as she is lifted down and set on a chair spindly for an adult and too big for a child. 

If Mrs Umbrade knew in that moment who -- or what -- the name and the bells signified she showed no sign of it. She shows no recognition or hint that there is a single, important comma missing from Terciel Abhorsen's identity. Likewise, she shows neither pity nor sickly sentiment to the quiet child. Sabriel leans trustingly against her father, her legs tucked under her, eyes drooping. The crossing from the Wall -- and the journey through the wild country of the Old Kingdom -- has wearied both travellers, but no word is spoken of it, for all that their clothes and name and papers say it for them.

Mrs Umbrade might show no fear and might have no magic but living a scant forty miles from the Wall leaves one ... cautious.  Magistrix Greenwood is called for, makes discreet check of Sabriel's Charter Mark, reassures Mrs Umbrade with a glance. 

Magistrix Greenwood knows both name and bells, and if her eyes flicker across to the sword neatly standing in an umbrella rack, and to the Charter Mark on the Abhorsen's brow, well, that is as it should be. She offers a bow, much as she would any visiting parent of high rank or power, and he considers her, the full weight of his not insubstantial gaze resting on her own Charter Mark for mere seconds, and returns her bow with a nod. 

Mrs Umbrade accepts the Magistrix's wordless assurance that the girl's Charter Mark is unblemished -- and that the bag of silver being discreetly counted in the anteroom to her office is real -- and smiles.  Of course Sabriel will receive the education of a young lady.  They are happy to teach her magic, for a small extra sum -- a wintry smile seems to suggest that the bleak faced man before her has already planned for this.

He merely inclines his head a little, and murmurs, "Naturally."  A second, smaller purse follows the first.

Beside him Sabriel sleeps.

It is only when all is said and done and the child's life has been neatly parcelled up into a curriculum of education, free time and sleep for the next thirteen years that the child wakes.  Her new home -- the dormitory where she will grow into a young lady, the refectory where she will eat, the grounds where she will play, and the halls in which she will be told repeatedly to "Walk! Sabriel!" -- looms dark and menacing.  Here there will be no sendings to watch over her, no Father to teach her, and no Charter to wrap around her in comfort. For all that she does not know him well, she clings to her Father, who allows it, drops to one knee to enfold her in return for a long moment.  Even like this, standing child to kneeling father they are not at eye level.

His long fingered hands are strong on her shoulders as he holds her away from him.  "This will be safe for you, and I will visit, I promise."

 "Every Midwinter and every Midsummer," she asks, although she already knows the answer. She runs her hand carefully down the bandoleer across his chest, not once touching the bells resting there.

"Every Midwinter and every Midsummer," he promises, nods once, and presses a kiss to her brow, above the Charter Mark. "Grow strong and learn well, and I will see you soon."

She nods in answer, rubs away her tears with the back of her hand. "Yes, Father."

He stands and turns, acquires sword, one of the travel bags, and leaves with no further ceremony, his daughter watching stoically.

Mrs Umbrade expects the worst of such partings, is pleasantly surprised by calm and sensible leave-takings. Society's practice of farming out the raising of daughters to boarding schools has been her bread and butter, and she raises each child sent to her as best she can to become strong, useful, thoughtful women, no matter the quality of the material she is presented with at the outset.  This one, she thinks, watching the small girl thoughtfully, will do well.

 

 

**Waker**

The fire in the dormitory is banked, the embers glowing dully in the dark room.  It is the new moon, the darkest night of the month, and the lights are all out, giving no clue to the time. Sabriel sits bolt upright, instinctively reaching for the Charter, sure she was awakened by something calling her name, low and insistent.  Deep instinct strengthened by training warns her it was nothing natural that roused her. The Charter magic rises easily to her reach for once, usually thin and inconsistent this far from the Wall, now it swells around her senses.  The wind must be coming down from the Wall.

"Sabriel."

She slides out of her bed, purses her lips a little, fetches her practice sword from her locker, and follows the sound.  She feels no fear, even though she has been warned, many times, from listening to things that whisper your name in the night.

"Sabriel."

The school is silent.  Her footsteps make no sound, and if the wind blows or the sleepers snore she cannot hear it.  She frowns a little, not certain that this is real. It could be just a dream, and she counts her fingers, opens a random door to find the usual mathematics room still behind it, and not some warped dreamscape.

She knows the voice.  It could still be something wrong and evil, but the voice is her father's. He had written that he might visit her, and her pace quickens.  Perhaps he is truly here, a full six days before Midwinter.

"Sabriel?"  She turns and discovers her father's face in the flames of the common room fire.

"How do I know it's you?" she asks, and he nods, pleased at her caution. 

"A false sending would have no charter magic in it, or the charter marks would be marred."

She looks carefully, then pulls a chair close into the brightly burning fire. "Good evening, Father," she says softly.

He steps out of the fire, and takes the chair across from her. "Good evening, Sabriel. Tell me, what you have learned?"

It has been nearly six months since she last saw him, and she has learned much.  "I stand first in English, third in Music, first in fighting arts," she says proudly.

His expression perhaps lightens a little.  "And in magic?"

Her smile is small and mostly involuntary. "Magistrix Greenwood tells me I may learn with the senior girls from next year, if I continue to make such good progress."  She tries not to feel too much pride, because her father will not approve, but she can't help but be pleased that she does well at the thing that he prizes.

"Well done," he says, "I am glad to hear it."

"Thank you."  She curls up in her chair, tucking her feet beneath her.  "Father?"

"Yes, Sabriel?"

"Why--"

"Why am I here?  Why a sending and not my true self? Why the middle of the night?"

"Yes?" she says hopefully, and he nods. 

"I will be with you at Midwinter, but we will be watched, and I --" he hesitates, and Sabriel frowns. Her father always knows what to say, never hesitates.

"I have something for you."  He reaches to something unseen, she glimpses a table in a house that she does not recognise, and he takes a book from it.  "This is-- this is _The Book of the Dead_."  He weighs it in his hand, the huge tome cloth wrapped and ominous.  "You know the work I do, that you will do in my stead, one day."

She nods.  She is still only ten, but she has had five years of teaching, both within the school and from her father when he visits, that ensure she understands how very different her world will be to the world of the girls she is growing up with.  They will be part of high society, becoming wives and mothers, trading on influence and wit for power and position.  She will wield the bells and sword of the Abhorsen, drive the restless Dead through the Gates of Death to find their final repose, and make the kingdom safe for those who live there. She knows that they will be pitted against necromancers and the Greater Dead, and the creatures that they bring down to prey upon the living.

"This." He raises the book, and it teeters on his palm, then settles. "This is the first step on a path." He hesitates again, as though words tremble on his lips, and he thinks better of speaking them.  "We will read it together, and you will learn the Abhorsen’s duty."

She can't stop the huge smile that breaks onto her face.  "Really?" she says a little breathlessly, leaning forward unconsciously in her chair.  He holds the book towards her and she takes it.  For a moment the Book feels insubstantial, far distant and unreal, her fingers sinking into it as though into a mist. And then it is there in her hands, indisputably real and solid, almost too heavy for her to hold.  At the same moment Charter magic crackles sharply up her arms and dissipates almost as quickly as it arrived.

"Good," he says again, as though the taking of the Book is itself an accomplishment; a test he was not sure she could pass.  "Open it and we shall begin."

 

 

**Walker**

Her father arrives early on Midsummer's day of her thirteenth year, long before the rest of the girls are awake.  Sabriel is ready.  Her bag was packed and repacked two days ago, (and twice more since) and she waits in the junior common room with it at her feet, banished from her lookout point in the bay windows overlooking the main drive and forbidden to loiter near the main doors of the College. Instead she sits quietly, decorously waiting for him to knock instead of following her (dangerous) first plan, to rush to the door and fling it wide.

He knocks on the door, once, twice, three times, and one of the maids, on edge and nervy, scurries forwards and opens it. 

Terciel stands waiting, his simple travelling clothes showing no hint of the power that lingers behind his lips as the servant welcomes him in, offers to take his coat ~No, thank you, he will not be staying long~ and asks who she should notify of his arrival.  The entire dance is according to Mrs Umbrade's careful script, and the Abhorsen participates dutifully.  Sabriel tries very hard not to dance with impatience.

The common room door opens -- finally!

"Miss Sabriel, your father is here to see you." Katy's eyes twinkle a little at Sabriel as she announces her visitor. Sabriel is instantly on her feet, bounding towards the door, hand held out to shake with her father's hand.

"Thank you, Katy.  Good morning, Father."

"Good morning, Sabriel." Terciel smiles as she lets go of his hand and bounces to the door. She flashes a pleased little smile back up at him and hitches her pack onto her narrow shoulders. "Ready?"

"Ready!"

"Then we shall begin." 

 

 

They don't travel far.  The taxi that was waiting for them only takes them within a couple of miles of the Wall, dropping them off at a small village, and promising to return for them in eight hours exactly.

They walk the rest of the way.  It's not far, and early as it is, the sun barely risen, the dew soaks through their gaiters almost immediately. Sabriel hitches her plain brown skirt up and lets the long grass batter her knees.  There's a small copse at the top of the hill, and she knows that this will be the place. 

"Do you remember how to lay out the diamond of protection?"

Sabriel nods, and draws her sword, draws a deep breath and walks the points, cutting the line around them, letting the Charter marks slide into the working in precise, steady order. She is breathing a little hard once done -- it's a bigger diamond than she's used to setting, and she put more power into it, knowing what would be coming.

Terciel tests the boundary while Sabriel watches him anxiously.  Finally he nods. "That is well done," he says briefly.  "Now.  Be comfortable, breathe deeply, and Walk with me."

She closes her eyes. She knows it isn't necessary, but for now she wants to forget the brightening sunny day, teeming with warm green Life. A chill sweeps over her and she breathes in deeply, and opens her eyes again, knowing even before she opens them that she has done it: she has Walked into Death.

"This is the First Precinct," her father murmurs, his hand steady and warm on her shoulder. The River behind him hisses and roils, then calms as it rushes away to the First Gate. "Be careful, always. However quiet it seems, however calm and safe, you are walking in Death, and there are those who can sense Life even from beyond the Ninth Gate, and will seek a path back into Life." 

She turns slowly. It’s cold, deeply, unforgivingly cold, and although they have not taken a step there is no mistaking it for what it is.

"Fix the sense of it in you. This is the place where you may summon the recently dead, and speak to them, if they have words they may be compelled to speak them; you may even call them back into Life, though this is not something to be done lightly."

She nods, drinks it in, one empty hand drifting unconsciously to swirl in a much practised figure of eight.

The Abhorsen smiles, satisfied.

 

**Speaker**

English Composition is not Sabriel’s favourite or best subject. Her factual essays are regarded uneasily by the English mistress, and her imaginative essays seem  to actively perturb the woman.  She does not know but would not be surprised to learn that her grades in English are the result of constant war between her ability and her teacher’s nerves.

Elocution suits them both better: the words are controlled by the teacher, and Sabriel merely has to speak them with no trace of the Old Kingdom accent that she barely even remembers at this point.  Her Father is the only Old Kingdom denizen that she has spoken to – barring accidents such as the Fifth Gate Rester that he had let her handle recently – and his accent is probably not a reliable guide to how her countrymen speak. Sometimes she thinks that she will return to the Old Kingdom entirely a stranger to it, knowing only Death and the unravelling of the restless Dead.  She sometimes thinks that perhaps this is the point.

The Rester had been bad.  Its voice had been thick and its words as twisted and malformed as its body. It had smelled her fear, and relished it, sneered at the little Abhorsen-in-Waiting, mocked her youth, her gender; laughed at her magic and her will.

She had tried Kibeth at first, with Ranna to subdue its will, hoping to walk it without fuss back into the First Precinct and then on to through the Precincts of Death to pass the Ninth Gate and out of the world entirely.  It had shaken off the jangle of a badly placed chime with ease,  _“Little Abhorsen, little whore-son, whore daughter, little girl, lost and alone, where’s the true wielder of the bells, let him give me a real challenge.”_ Its voice had chewed through the words, and she’d caught herself straining to hear, trying to understand its words.  Her hand drifted to Dyrim, and it had laughed _, “Yes, yes, let me speak, little bell ringer, spell maker, life taker—“_

“Do not listen,” her father murmured in her memory. “The dead lie. They are desperate to return to Life, and they will trick and cheat their way through you, if you let them.”

Her hand had moved to Saraneth, Kibeth stilled and put away silently. Ranna had chimed out first, a quick one-two pair of notes ringing loud and clear, a pulse beat and then a second pair, had slowed the Rester’s determined shambling towards her.  Its words had slurred into unintelligible mumbles, and she had swung Saraneth, looping her in a careful figure of eight, then holding the clapper still, the chime holding in the still air, loud against the rushing water of the Fifth Gate. Holding her breath with almost as much care, holding her will steady:

“ _Go. Pass beyond the Ninth Gate and out of the world; linger no more by the river, and do not wait in the Fifth Precinct any more.”_

She shivers. The cold is not merely vivid memory: ice is crawling out from her folded hands; her decorously still feet are rimed with frost.

“Sabriel?”

She clears her mind with the will that held a powerful lurker from the Fifth Gate to her desire that it pass out of the world beyond the Ninth Gate against its every struggling desire to remain. She is in class, not in Death.

“Yes, Miss Easton?”

“If you would commence from the top of page 47, please?”

“Of course.” She glances down at the page, finds the starting point, and began to speak, remembering all she has been taught; every consonant crisp, her vowels smooth and clear, each word and its meaning read, weighed and accorded its full measure.  She reads the story – an orphan brought home from far away, resentfully learning a world that she is wholly unfamiliar with - quickly, lightly, and as though her life depended on it.

 

**Remembrancer**

The Book is read.  They close the last page together; let the cover settle in place with a final turn.

Sabriel is seventeen, or will be shortly. The pace of time in Ancelstierre is not the same as the Old Kingdom, and Terciel cannot be sure that the autumn has turned into winter yet.  Midwinter and Midsummer are easier to track, but even they have caught him unawares some years.

He sets down the cup of tea, the monthly ritual, and he stretches out his hand to take hers.  She glances at him, her dark eyebrows flickering with swiftly controlled surprise.  

“You do well, Sabriel,” he says quietly, and she blushes, drops her eyes.  The little smile that he treasures is half hidden behind her hair, and he lets her hide. Confidence will come with time, and practice.

She was always tall for her years, and with her latest growth spurt she is now nearing his own height, giving her a reach with her sword arm that would stand her in good stead in the years to come. She was once so small – barely a weight at all as he plucked her from the river and gave her back into the warmth of Life, securing her service and duty before she ever drew her first breath.

It has been years since he had had to stoop to reach her. He tries to remember if her mother had been tall or short: Sabriel favours her Abhorsen blood, and the brown, sturdy woman who had borne her at such cost to herself has left almost no sign of her blood and bones in Sabriel’s fine features and graceful bearing.  He barely remembers the woman's face, is not sure he had ever known her name, and her height had been -- largely irrelevant to their brief acquaintance.

He wishes he could tell her something of her mother, of the Travellers who had been her maternal family; he remembers being taught of old family stories and almost regrets that he never spoke of them to Sabriel. He wants to promise that there will be time, time when she returns home, and takes up the tabard and bells awaiting her. But there have been murmurings in the river, whispers among the lesser Dead, and he has struggled to find the source, but fears what will come.

He stood by his Aunt’s side for a decade in training. In the darkest moments he worries that Sabriel will not have even so much.  She has finished the _Book of the Dead_ , and he is proud of her – and dreadfully afraid that this driving urgency that made him teach a child to walk into Death is not mere fear but a premonition of coming disaster.

He could wish that it had not come to this, just the two of them left of all the Abhorsen's lineage.

He hopes, desperately, that it will not be just one.

 

**Binder**

Saraneth is not the largest bell, but she rings the lowest note of them all, wrapping her long song into an unyielding hand on the shoulder of whoever hears it. The wielder stands with Saraneth as a bulwark against the Dead, winding strong threads about the hearer, demanding all listen and obey even unto the Ninth Gate.

Her father and _The Book of the Dead_ both teach Sabriel that Saraneth is the Abhorsen’s nearest friend.  Here is the ending of the necromancer’s art: to take and remake, bind to the Abhorsen’s will and sever that which is dead from the living.

Saraneth will be the bell that drives Sabriel’s father into Death to hold back Kerrigor, and she will not be enough. Saraneth will not be enough, and Terciel will send back both bells and sword to Sabriel, hoping that his will alone may hold what Saraneth has commanded, and keep Kerrigor beyond the Gates.

Sabriel never forgets.

In her hand, Saraneth will send the Dead after him, one by one, bound into the ending of an existence that is less than life.  If Sabriel will sometimes think of them as travelling companions for her Father, an honour guard that marks his sacrifice, the thought will have but a moment’s sway; Terciel would not thank her for them, and his soul, long soaring beyond the stars, has no care for what his mortal daughter does.

Of all the bells, the lowest note seems the sweetest sound to Sabriel, grounding her, settling into her very bones and demanding she hold the line.  She will grow to rely on Saraneth’s stern call, and Sabriel will always hold herself ready for the day when Saraneth’s low note hits deep into her chest, saying to her as she once did to her father before her, _You too must go, out to the Ninth Precinct and beyond the Gate into the stars, as others have passed before you_.

She hopes – will come to hope for her husband, her sister, her son and daughter – that the day will be far off.

 

 

**Weeper**

Sabriel knows she will only hear Astarael’s sweet note once: there is no returning from the Death that the Weeper demands. She hopes to never have to ring her, and would be glad to know that she never does.  

She had thought of the Weeper as a friend for a long time. To a small, lonely girl, motherless and shipped off to live in a foreign land, a Weeper seemed like someone who would understand the limitless grief of the bereft. But children are resilient, and bells do not comfort like the kind words of a playmate, or the praise of a respected teacher, and grief itself mutes and fades with time, returning in brief flashes that themselves dwindle.

She knows better now. The Weeper calls for death, only and simply. Indiscriminate and without mercy, taking those who hear her cry whether Living or Dead, and throwing them far beyond all recall.  She demands only the cessation of travail; that the world stop at her behest; just and only the utter end of all things. It does not tempt her any more.  Sabriel has lost too much to ever desire Astarael’s music.

Astarael will be rung once in Sabriel’s lifetime, to bind the Unbound, and throw the Ninth Bright Shiner, the Destroyer, into a sleep too deep to ever come back. It will not be Sabriel that wields her, but instead the sister that she did not know she had, the sister who will have met Astarael in the darkness and lived to speak of it, who Sabriel fears may never have the chance to live to become to be the Abhorsen in her turn.

And against all expectation, Sabriel will rejoice when she returns.

**Author's Note:**

> Hark how the bells,  
> Sweet silver bells,  
> all seem to say,  
> Death has its day,  
> Singing of fear,  
> to King and Seer,  
> Takes young and old,  
> meek and the bold,  
> ding dong ding dong that is their song
> 
> Hear how they ring  
> Gates opening,  
> Sleep, sleep I pray,  
> all men do say,  
> from everywhere  
> filling the air,  
> oh how they pound  
> raising the sound  
> o'er hill and dale  
> telling their tale  
> Daily they ring  
> While people sing--  
> Ranna, Mosrael, Kibeth, Dyrim,  
> Belgaer, Saraneth, Astarael...
> 
>  
> 
> (With apologies to Peter Wilhousky).


End file.
